It's as violent as seinen with its body horror, but with nothing remotely meaningful to say or thematically explore that you can't read in stories aimed at young children (killing's bad m'kay? Humans emotions are good m'kay?). It's as creative with its battles and abilities as a shonen, but without the coherent rules of the genre.
The author regularly pulls undeserved plot twists and powers out of his ass during battles, making it seem like we've just seen a pay-off. But pay-offs don't work without set-ups. Visit the forums to see people often wondering "how did the character do that?" "why did that happen?" "how is this character not dead?" "Why is that character so strong now?" "Wait, how is that possible?". The commenters are all positive, they love the manga. They're not complaining. They're patiently waiting for everything to make sense later.
They're waiting in vain. Because the author is seemingly a fan of the 'soft magic' system of literature, where anything goes. But soft magic and the shonen genre are not good bedfellows. When you read something like Naruto, One Piece or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, you are methodically given explanations for every characters abilities and limitations. Characters like Naruto or Luffy can't just sprout wings or teleport from here to there without training first or other some such thing. Or if they don't proactively get the power, then the narrative at least sets-up the fact that it's possible for them to do things under certain circumstances.
Chainsaw Man does not set-up anything, it just makes shit happen for dramatic affect. The main character will suddenly use his chainsaws in a new way in the middle of a tough battle...just because.
Simply, it's not fun when the author can make a character do whatever the plot needs them to do. It's deflating, anticlimactic and quite frankly amateurish.
There are times when the manga wants to aim for emotional resonance, but it's futile. How can I be emotionally invested in the characters and narrative when the author can make up things on the fly? Why can this character teleport, why can that one be mind-controlled? There's no concrete rules established, so if anything bad can happen then the opposite is true: anything good can happen too. The author undermines every source of dramatic tension.
The manga is fun, it's creative in its irreverent humour with good art composition. Though at times it veers (or should I say 'leers') into pervy territory too much for my liking. It doesn't seem to know what its about. If you want to be a pervy manga then be a pervy manga. If you only dole the titillating nudity out here and there, it's not only odd but sticks out like a sore thumb, destabilising the tone of the narrative. Its treatment of women as a whole is arguably problematic as well, though as the manga has not finished at the time of this review, perhaps the author will avoid the pitfall of painting women weirdly.
It's not a bad manga, but it's hindered from being a great one. The colour version is pretty good with its creative usage of colours.
